Regrets in the Night
by Angela Penfold
Summary: An ex-county worker mulls over his life since leaving the hospital and tries to find the courage to make the call that could lead him back there.


Regrets in the Night  
  
The tiny lights of a city still bustling at 3am glowed in the dark. Sitting by the window Ray Shepherd had watched them slowly change from an almost dizzying drift of illumination to far-flung starbursts sprinkled across the horizon. Earlier in the night he'd had the soft melodies of the Eagles drifting through the apartment but now the speakers were silent. The noises of the city floated around him as comforting as the embrace of a loved one. Car horns and the tinkle of kicked bottles, drunken yells from the closing bar across the street, the rattle of the El along its tracks, screaming sirens as an ambulance rig roared through the neighbourhood -– it was the late night soundtrack of Chicago. This was one aspect of the city he would miss the most if he left.  
  
A pale hand rose from the arm of the chair, a glass of amber whiskey clasped in its fingers. Knuckles grazed the cool plastic of a telephone handset on their course to deliver a numbing shot of alcohol to an overtaxed mind. He'd moved the phone nearby hours before along with the bottle of Jack Daniels, determined to pluck up the courage to make the call. Halfway through the bottle and he still hadn't dialled the first digit.  
  
He'd been meaning to call her since the night of the baseball game. The gleam of the sodium lights on the so familiar dark curls had made his heart pound and his stomach clench. Vicki's arrival had put an end to the speech he'd had planned. After that he didn't think there was any way back to the way things once were. Carol had obviously got over him a lot quicker than it was taking him to get over her. For two weeks afterwards he'd found himself driving past her house late at night, praying that somehow she'd know he was there and rush out to tell him she'd made a mistake. That hopeful meeting never happened, in the end he threw away the childish dreams and decided to try and put the past behind him to start his life again.  
  
The funny thing was, after all those arguments, all the reasons he'd tried to find not to go to a psychiatrist, that was where he'd ended up. Tired of smothering the nightmares and despair deep inside to hide them away from Vicki, he'd finally sought the help he'd resisted for so long. Awkward at first, the sessions in the last four months had finally started helping; he'd found ways to channel the anger that had seemed like a constant companion.  
  
Another mouthful of whiskey sent the waning fire in his stomach aglow again. Each tiny sip would mount against the bank of courage deep in his heart, maybe with enough whiskey burning in his gut he'd finally be the hero he'd always made himself out to be. Deep inside he knew that wasn't true, but he still needed his dreams, as impossible as fulfilling them was, they were a necessary part of life. At least that was what Dr Fraser was drumming into him in every session.  
  
Even with his evaluation files and those on the incident that had left Raul dead in his doctor's hands, Shep had found it hard to talk in those first few sessions. Emotions had been bottled inside him so long, he didn't know how to let them flow past his lips anymore, not the ones that mattered anyway. Anger, guilt, self-pity, and hatred for the world in general had all made it out, but the ones that really needed to be voiced remained buried. If he started letting them free, they'd never stop, he'd be consumed by the reality of his best friend's death and he wasn't ready to handle that.  
  
It had been at the end of his third session that the first chink in his retaining wall had appeared. Following in the footsteps of the first two meetings, he'd stuck to generalisations in this one, discussing the incidents that had led him to the psychiatrist's door, describing the anger that had become all too familiar in the past months. Then at the end of his hour, as he'd stood up, pulled on his coat and walked to the office door, the doctor had asked him a question that hadn't been voiced. Whether people had thought the answer was obvious, or hadn't wanted to delve into the pain the question could possibly cause, they just hadn't asked it.  
  
The tapping of the doctor's pen against his desk had stilled and allowed silence to suddenly drift into the room. Unsure of what was coming, Shep had turned to the dark haired man behind the desk, one blond brow arched questioningly. Dr Fraser stared at him for a moment, the brown eyes that had been seemed deceptively dreamy at first now drifted over him, hardened by a veil of intelligence and inquiring. When the smooth voice finally emerged it had bought with it a punch hard enough to stun the paramedic for a moment.  
  
"If it had been the other way round, would you have followed Raul into the fire?"  
  
The doctor's words felt like a punch to his stomach, a blow to his ego and a questioning of his friendship and bravery. Shep stood for a moment, unable to answer as his suddenly parched lips fought for words.  
  
"In a second," he finally managed huskily. He cleared his throat, trying to make his glare defiant and angry, he didn't quite make it. "I'd never have let him go in there on his own. W-we knew that about each other, w-we'd never let the other g-go into a bad situation on their own. We were brothers Dr Fraser."  
  
Nodding gently, the doctor leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands in his lap again. "That was all I wanted to know. I'll see you same time next week Mr Shepherd."  
  
Words had come a little easier at the next meeting, still slow and hesitant, but he'd been able to speak of some of the deep feelings he'd had towards his rig partner. Week by week the chinks in his protective wall broke wider, turning into cracks that let the pent up emotions flow free. On occasions there had been tears, battled against but finally allowed to roll. Dr Fraser hadn't ridiculed him for those, hadn't tried to swamp him in false words of sympathy, he'd just leaned over, handing the battered man before him a box of tissues. Tears were no longer so forthcoming at the sessions; he'd cried himself clear of the ones he'd held back since the night that had changed his life.  
  
His weekly meetings were now a part of his life he wouldn't go without, they were his channel, the drainage for a broken soul. His one regret about them was that he hadn't sought them out earlier, in time to save the relationship that had kept him afloat in his darkest hour. They were the reason he was fighting for the courage to call Carol. She'd told him night after night as he'd woken from his nightmares, drenched in sweat and shaking beneath her touch, to seek the help she knew he needed, but he'd fought against it. Now he just wanted to tell her she'd been right.  
  
A shuddery breath passed his lips as he lifted the glass to drain its final measure of whiskey. Late at night like this he couldn't help but think of Raul. The music, the wail of the sirens, the drunks stumbling home, they all reminded him of the nights they'd been together on shift, roaring through the streets to save a life or just driving around the city, talking about their hopes, their fears, their lives. Alcohol couldn't free him of those memories, they were too deeply ingrained, but it burnt away the deep melancholy that threatened to swamp him, and allowed him to handle them.  
  
Across the street, the last of the drinker's from the bar poured out onto the streets, their drunken voices lifted in song, out of tune but instantly recognisable. "So take a letter Maria, address it to my wife, say I won't be coming home, gonna start a new life…."  
  
Those two lines were all it took to spin him back into another gut- wrenching memory. They'd danced to that, him and Carol, back on the night they'd discovered the fireplace in her house. Home, he reminded himself silently, not a house, 'it's a home, Hathaway.' Spinning round in the shell of her lounge, just revelling in sensation as their bodies heated. The song had ended but they carried on dancing until finally they'd made it to the bedroom. Time stretched into eternity for them as they'd slowly made love, bodies flowing into one another. Afterwards they'd lain in the bed, their bodies and souls so tangled that he didn't know where their flesh ended and his overwhelming love for her began.  
  
Those nights were fragile, as delicate as spun glass in his heart and mind, the weight of death and parting pressing down so hard sometimes that those memories were almost crushed to dust. Tears had been a rare commodity to him back then, years of forced bravado and arrogance keeping them stolen away, but they came now. Salty rivers meandered down his cheeks, staining their source a raw red, spiking the delicate lashes into twisted clumps. Just a few weeks were all it had taken to wipe out every last drop of happiness in his being, or so it seemed.  
  
He was a barren wasteland of dried up emotion now, scorched dead by wistful memories and liquid gold firewater. Fertility returned to barren land though, it could take decades but a cleared landscape would bloom again. That was what he had now, what therapy and the realisation that life could be lived again after Raul's death had taught. Hope springs eternal, and where there is hope, there was the change that love again could grow.  
  
A soft voice in the room behind him dragged him from his burgeoning misery. Lifting his head he listened to her sleep-filled speech. "Shep, it's past two. Are you coming to bed?" It was Vicki. Earlier that evening they'd been out for dinner before coming back to his place. He hadn't been able to ask her to move in with him yet, but maybe one day soon he'd be ready to take that big step in continuing his life.  
  
"I'll be in, in a minute baby," Shep murmured softly. "I'm just gonna finish up this drink."  
  
"Ok." Her soft footsteps faded into silence as she padded back to his bedroom.  
  
Placing his empty glass down on the side table, Shep took in a deep breath, stood up and swiped the tears away as he walked to the lounge door. His reminiscing was over for tonight, his regrets were still sharp, the wish that he'd never let his friend follow him into the building and that he'd not ruined the love a beautiful woman had given him were going to be stored away for another night though. He'd go and lay in the arms of the woman who'd comforted him for the last few months and sleep, knowing that tomorrow he'd sit here again and try to find the courage to make that call. 


End file.
